The Newsletter of Orienteering New Brunswick
Rob Hughes
Summer ti-i-i-i-ime...and the orienteerin' is e-e-e-zzzz-e-e-e-e.... well, it is if you take a couple of months off. A bit harder for our stalwart national team members, who were training and then competing in the WOC's in Finland. Read on in this issue for a first hand account.
At this point in the year we are looking forward to the fall O-season. There are some nice looking meets lined up. If you want endurance events, the scene is getting better all the time - read more in this issue for details. In fact the variety of orienteering on offer is improving steadily, with night events, bike-O, rogaines and special courses such as Hell-O and other innovations.
There are simply no excuses for not getting out to an event and having a good time!
As ever, ONB Notes needs copy from you for the next issue. Being an editor is no holiday....later in this issue you can read about the lengths to which we editors are sometimes driven (or what happens when we finally snap...). You have been warned.
My normal reminder again....the email address for all submissions to ONB Notes is rustics@brunnet.net. Contributions in any format gladly accepted.
from one of the keyboards of Stig Skarborn....
At the end of the COF selection process and subject to a few regrets, New Brunswick contributed five athletes to the World Championships in Finland; Mike, Sandy and Wil Smith; Micheal Fellows, and Cherie Mahoney. As a person who has seen these fine young men and women grow up over the years and combine studies and work with orienteering, I am proud of what they achieved, and hope that they will continue being involved in, and competing in, orienteering. That results may have not been what was expected by some, should only serve to illustrate that at the world stage, competition is very tough and demanding. I hope that some of the athletes will have time to share their experiences with us in future issues of ONB Notes or Orienteering Canada.
Consider heading to the Brandon, Manitoba, area for the Canadian Orienteering Championships October 6 to 8. The full information is given in the Spring, 2001, issue of Orienteering Canada, and on the website www.orienteering.mb.ca. I hope that there will be a few inexpensive seat sales to Brandon or Winnepeg that time of year. The New Brunswick "A"-squad members will receive a $100 contribution toward expenses for this event.
I have orienteered at a COC in Manitoba before with a group of New Brunswick youngsters and a very keen British military man, Colin Dickson. A few of the now older orienteers should remember him well, as he is quite a character. The sandhill terrain is something else I will not soon forget. I need to get back there to seek revenge for last times failures.
Elite and other pool membership
Stig Skarborn
Based on the activity in this list, and the knowledge of the orienteering activities of orienteers not included in the list, the squads are revised as follows for the fall orienteering season:
Elite Squad (A-Pool)
Mike and Wil Smith, M20
Mike Fellows, M20
Heather and Victoria Smith, F17-19
Alex Whaley, M17-19
Lucy Hughes, F15-16
Carol Ross, F13-14
B-Pool
No qualifiers due to non-participation in spring events.
C-Pool
Graham St-Laurent, M20
Emily Ross, F12
Fraser Ross, M12
Ian Black, M12
It can be seen from the above list that we have few new orienteers coming up through the ranks. I sincerely hope that as many young (and old) orienteers as possible will be participating in the fall events to gain ranking points and achieve "Pool" status. The advantages to this include financial support to participate in major competitons. Support will be available for the A-Pool members to participate in the Boulder Dash in New Hampshire September 8-9 and the Canadian Orienteering Championships in Manitoba on the Thanksgiving weekend. Please apply directly to Don Heron for funding.
April 29, 2001
The day turned out bright and clear with no rain. We had a great turnout of new and old Orienteers, Rolf Ohlsson came from Moncton and Mike Smith and Anita O'Brien came from Saint John. Matthew O'Brien and Ken Whaley enjoyed the wheelchair course. We had a nice turnout from the clinic including the Hamel family and also some wayfarers who just dropped by to try out orienteering. Welcome to newcomer Akech Makieth. There were no prizes. Everyone got a "good cookie" and a drink after finishing their course. This went down well with everyone, especially the kids. It was heartening to see people orienteering for the sheer joy of it. A big Thank You to Ray St-Laurent for his fun courses and to Barbara - without her help, registration would be a fiasco.
Cheers,
Theresa Whaley
Carol Ross
On May 12th, my family went to the Amherst Bird Sanctuary for a Score-O put on by the Amherst Finders club. First of all it was wet! It wasn't raining, but there was mud and water everywhere, not that we weren't expecting it. My pants were coated up to the knees with mud when I finished, and I didn't even go for any of the ones that looked too hard!
There were about 20 participants five of which were from Moncton. My whole family did really well, Dad came in second out of everyone with 2 controls less than Greg Nix, Mom and Emily got all the controls on the novice course and came first in their class, and I came in first in my class of one person.
There was a wonderful variety of difficulty as far as the locations of the controls. They were controls placed everywhere from trail junctions to pits in the middle of a featureless forest (I didn't go for any that looked hard!). There were 20 controls on the course, seven worth 100 points, seven worth 200 points and six worth 300 points for a grand total of 3900. The map had five colors, scale is 1:10,000, and 5 m contours and Wil Smith recently helped upgrade the map.
We all had a blast and the Bird Sanctuary is a wonderful place to orienteer! Even better is the fact that it was only 77 km away from home. Can't wait till next time.
Ray St-Laurent
The details are here.
June 3, 2001
The Falcon Cup/ONB Championships were held on June 3 at the Pits of Despair, also known as the Hillsborough Quarries. About 70 orienteers, including a busload of students from Amherst, braved the cool drizzle. Unfortunately, due to a misplaced control, Courses 4, 5 and 6 had to be disqualified. The meet organizers apologize for this error.
The details are here.
The times recorded for Courses 4, 5 and 6 are unofficial as they do not take into account the various amounts of time competitors spent looking for the misplaced control. However, for purposes of assigning points for the Falcon Cup, the organizers decided to give points for competitors who otherwise finished the courses, averaging the points -- i.e., if there was one person finishing, he/she got 3 points, if there were two persons, each got 2.5 points, and if there were three persons, each got 2 points.
The total points allotted were as follows:
Finders 39.5, Falcons 39.5, Foxes 10, Fundy 2.
The Courier de Bois award given to the club in the province with the most points for the championship categories only went to the Falcons with 17 points.
Carol Ross
Sunday, June 3 was the date of the NB Championships and the 15th annual Falcon Cup. The Falcons won the NB Plaque and the Amherst Finders and the Fundy Falcons tied for the Falcon cup for the first time in history! However, on the Tuesday after came the daunting task of picking up the remaining 20 controls. Ouch! Dad, Fraser and I went out into the Pits of Despair with a friend to retrieve the controls. The mosquitoes were ravenous! We managed to get the first four without any major mistakes, but the fifth one took a little bit of luck and a lot of wandering around to locate it. Six took us a minute to find as well. We survived the rest moderately well, though it was hard to stop for more than 5 seconds without disappearing under a mass of bugs. With about five controls to go we sent Fraser back to pick a control and then head for the car while the rest of us climbed up and down to get the those last controls. One of the more interesting experiences I had was when we found a garter snake. The poor thing briefly took flight when it started climbing up my sleeve. We also found a robin's nest on the ground and speculated as to whether it was there because the mom had lost a chick 'cause it fell out of a nest. All in all we successfully completed course 7 on day 3 of the NB Champs.
Over and out, Carol Ross
Stig Skarborn
Canadian orienteers distinguished themselves at the 2-day US Orienteering Championships held May 12-13 in upper New York State, an event also serving as a selection race for the team to represent the US at the World Orienteering Championships in Finland this summer.
Pam James from Halifax was unstoppable, winning the race both days with a total time of 118:36 well ahead of US runner Pavlina Brautigam in a time of 137:06. Fourth place went to Hillsborough's Cherie Mahoney in a time of 141:35. Cherie was in second place after Day 1 in a time of 67:01 compared to Pam's 59:38.
Brian May, a well known Canadian orienteer who I think of as being from Newfoundland (now competing for the US?), won on the men's side in a 2-day total time of 162:21. Second place went to well known US runner and mapper Mikell Platt in 165:31, closely followed by our own Mike Smith from Waterside in a time of 166:08. Mike had a very good second day run advancing from 6th place on Day 1. Fredericton's Mike Fellows finished in 10th place in a time of 174:32, after being in 3rd place after Day 1. His Day 2 time was 94:06 which put him in 17th place, indicating a problem on Day 2. Wil Smith finished in 31st place in the approximately 70 man field.
The planned fall bike-O in the UNB Woodlot is unfortunately off. UNB refused the Fredericton Foxes club permission to put on an event of this kind in the woodlot. There seems to be reluctance to approve bike events as, (according to the UNB woodlot management) this would open the door to other kinds of bike races which UNB is not keen to have going on in the woodlot. I think there may also have been concerns about liability, although club coverage can be provided through Velo-NB (who were enthusiastic about the idea). This is unfortunate given that the UNB woodlot is ideally suited to this kind of orienteering, almost certainly the best such map we have.
Rob Hughes, 363 5980 rustics@brunnet.net
Don Heron
NB Champs courses 4, 5 & 6 were cancelled and rescheduled for Autumn Amble.
The details are here.
or...
True Confessions of a Canadian Orienteer in Finland
Mike Fellows
Well it had been a busy week since I returned from World Orienteering Championships in Finland. Opening three weeks of mail, getting back into the swing of things at work, unpacking my bags and washing an enormous pile of fermenting orienteering clothes had all taken a lot of time and energy. But while I was catching up on my chores at home something was nagging at the back of my mind... there was something important I was forgetting.
Suddenly there was an ominous knocking at my door. I took my time answering the door, and by the time I got there the knocking had turned into a furious pounding. Who could it be? As I turned the door handle I suddenly realized this could only be one person - but it was too late. The door burst open and there standing before me - eyes ablaze, hair standing on end, with a pencil clutched in one hand and a pad of paper in the other -was the ONB Notes editor Rob Hughes. "You owe me an orienteering article you little punk, and I'm going to pull it out of your brain if I have to go in through the soles of your feet!"
"Calm down Rob", I pleaded, "you know I'm good for an article, there's no need to get all worked up."
"You've been promising me an article for a year", he snarled, "and I haven't seen so much as a sentence! I've decided to take matters into my own hands." And with that he muscled me into a chair, and tied me in with a roll of flagging tape he pulled from his pocket. I was trussed up like a Christmas turkey, with no possibility of escape.
Realizing the seriousness of my predicament I tried to talk my way out of it. "You know Rob, you'll never get away with this kind of treatment. I'm a card carrying member of ONB and the COF - I've got rights!"
"You can forget about that," Rob replied coolly. "Theresa Whaley has already agree to revoke your ONB membership if you don't cooperate. And Ray St.-Laurent will turn a blind eye - in his eyes this is an internal ONB matter."
I realized that I was sunk. With the Iron Lady Whaley AND that Machiavellian character St.-Laurent aligned against me I had no chance. I decided to cooperate. "Alright Rob, I'll tell you anything you want to know."
Rob brought a chair over in front of me, sat down with his pencil and paper and said "O.K. let's start at the beginning."
"Well," I replied, " I was born in Kitchener Ontario on December 31, 1969. My parents had thought a second child was a good idea nine months earlier, but shortly after my birth I think they began questioning their decision..."
"Not that beginning, you idiot!!" Rob interrupted. "Start at the beginning of your trip to Tampere Finland - to the World Orienteering Championships!" And so it began... the true confessions of a Canadian orienteer in Finland (Saaviiturkkueminetti suominuimine-mikkinnu Kanidineskkinataarvi Ollu-oenrientteineerinkktavinen Suomimalinu).
It all started on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in July - July 17th to be exact. I drove from Fredericton to Halifax and met Mike Smith. We flew to Norway via Iceland that evening on Icelandair. Stig Skarborn had asked Icelandair to sponsor the Canadian team, and they had given us a good price for our tickets. We arrived in Oslo on Wednesday morning and were picked up by Mike's sister Sandy. She lives in Oslo with her Husband Holger. Unfortunately Holger had not been named to the Norwegian team despite being ranked in the top ten in the world - a testament to both the tough competition in Norway and the vagaries of their selection process.
We spent a few days in Oslo acclimatizing and training. Holger and his friend Thormud had each set out a training course on maps near Oslo. Mike and I ran on both courses. This was my second time in Scandinavia and I found the terrain around Oslo to be quite challenging. The vegetation was highly variable - from thick areas that rivalled the worst that New Brunswick has to offer, to fast open forest. The terrain was rocky and detailed, with many features packed into small areas.
On Thursday morning Sandy, Mike and I were waiting anxiously for a delivery in the mail. It was the Canadian team uniforms manufactured by Trimtex in Norway. We had ordered them at the last minute and they had been hard pressed to finish our order on time. Sandy had convinced Trimtex to sponsor our team, and they gave us a good break on the prices (did I mention Trimtex...). An hour before our planned departure two big boxes showed up from Trimtex. At least we wouldn't be orienteering naked in Finland! We then drove from Oslo to Stockholm and caught the overnight ferry to Turku, Finland.
We planned to tune up for the Championship races by running in days 4 and 5 of the Fin5 day - which were being held near Turku this year. When we arrived at the event centre we met Pam James and Cherie Mahoney. They had already competed in the first three days of the event, although Pam was competing in the open classes for the last couple of days while she tapered for the World Championships. The fourth day of the event was a World Ranking Event with stiff competition. Mike was 50th and I was 51st, over 20 minutes behind the winner - some young Finnish guy names Pasi Ikonen. Sandy was 27th and Cherie placed 30th in D21E, a Finnish runner (Reeta Kolkalla) also won the women's race. I ran in the H21A class on the fifth day and finished 63rd, while Mike Smith was 40th. Sandy was 34th in D21A, while Cherie was 22nd in D21E for the day and 20th overall after five days of races.
The races were fun and the terrain very interesting, with even more detail than I had seen in Oslo. In particular there was a great deal of sparsely forested bare rock, heavily glaciated and with a lot of rock and contour detail. The bare rock was usually covered in a thick blanket of moss and often the footing was difficult. The amount of contour detail was similar to Rockwood Park, but there were a lot more cliffs and boulders, and the forest was relatively open. A humorous aspect of the last two days of the Fin5 was that the start and Finish area were immediately adjacent to the city dump. The seagulls cheered us on.
After we finished the fifth day of the Fin5 on Saturday afternoon we traveled from the coast to Tampere, about a two hour drive to the North East. From the window of our car I watched South Western Finland roll by. In some ways it reminded me of New Brunswick, an endless parade of low rocky hills covered in a dark green blanket of coniferous forest. The forest is broken by many farms, and almost as many lakes.
Upon arriving in Tampere we moved into our accommodations - a large and well protected police school. At least we wouldn't be mugged. The entire team was staying in one large apartment that included a kitchen. We were planning on cooking all of our meals to keep our costs down.
We had a week before the first race, and so we began training on the many maps around Tampere. Many of the areas had controls hung for training. They had been used by many teams throughout the spring and summer. The control locations had well trodden paths leading into and out of the control, but this didn't make it much easier to find them. I found that it only made it easier to know when you weren't at the control. If you couldn't see a trail leading into a feature it wasn't the right location. The terrain in the training areas had bigger hills than we had seen in Turku, more vegetation changes - from logging primarily, and more water features.
I found the vegetation to be one of the biggest challenges - like New Brunswick the Finnish forest is logged heavily. But, unlike New Brunswick, they tend to cut the forest down in smaller chunks. So the orienteering maps are covered in a patchwork of white and various shades of green, with many distinct vegetation boundaries criss-crossing the maps. The forest is also managed more heavily than in New Brunswick, they are thinned extensively - which usually improves their runnability. Although it does result in some odd features, a large patch of "white" forest might have many stands of trees. Each stand would consist of trees of the same age, but that could vary from 10 years old to 80 years old - and there was no way to tell from the map if the forest was uniform or composed of several different stands. Often a distinct vegetation boundary would delineate the change from one age group of trees to another.
Large marshes were found in the valleys and low-lying areas. Some of these marshes were large peat bogs with ponds in the middle. Woe betide the orienteer who strays too close to the middle of the peat bogs - they will attempt to swallow you up. Many of the shallower marshes were drained to improve their tree growing abilities. Long ditches are dug through the marshes to drain them, these were distinctive features. However most marshes were slower running than the forest so I, and most of the other team members, tended to avoid them.
Like Turku the most prominent feature on the map and underfoot was rock. Bare rock, cliffs large and small, boulders and stony ground were all present in large quantities. The footing was often difficult because of the rock and the thick vegetation.
During the training the Finnish weather went through a transformation from cool and rainy - the normal summer weather in Finland I was told - to warm and sunny. The excellent weather was to hold out for the duration of our stay in Tampere.
As our training week progressed the rest of the team trickled in. Nick Duca, a newly anointed Canadian citizen, arrived on Tuesday. Lumi Duca, also with a fresh new Canadian passport, arrived on Thursday. Wil Smith dragged himself away from his medical studies and arrived on Friday.
Finally the competition started on Saturday July 28th with the opening ceremonies. We paraded through downtown Turku in our spiffy new Trimtex warm up suits and arrived at the town square. There, along with several thousand spectators, we were bombarded with a multi-media presentation that included: bombast courtesy of IOF officials, the mayor and other stuffed shirts - cheesecake courtesy of the Tampere Cheerleaders - and just plain cheese courtesy of a local pop artist who had composed the theme song for the championships. Still, a good time was had by all, especially those who had a good view of the cheerleaders.
The next day was the first race. Sunday afternoon in the park! The first ever World Championships sprint race was held just North of downtown Turku in the Kauppi city park. The race featured several thousand spectators, a big screen TV (and I mean big!), colour commentary in both Finnish and English, and Sandy Hott Johansen and Nick Duca competing for Canada. The races featured several spectator controls and the competitors all had one leg of the race that brought them back through the start and finish. All of this broadcast on the big screen TV, at times it was hard to stop watching the TV and to actually watch a runner running up the finish chute. After all they were about 20 feet tall on the TV screen - but only a puny 5 or 6 feet in real life.
Sandy and Nick both had problems in the race - not surprising considering the huge number of distractions in and around the race - and it is virtually impossible to make up time in a race that lasts a dozen minutes. Nick was 45th in a time of 14:22, three and a half minutes behind the winner on a 2.66 km course. Sandy was 38th in a time of 15:37, about 4 and a half minutes behind the winner. Her course was 2.24 km. Vroni Konig-Salmi from Switzerland won the women's race, while Jimmy Birklin from Sweden won the men's.
The next day was the first day of races for the rest of the team with the classic qualifier taking place North of Tampere. There were two qualification races for the men and two for the women. The top thirty from each race went on to the final the next day. The forest was similar to the training areas and the competition was stiff. The men's course was 8.8 km and featured plenty of what we had come to expect from our training, thick forest and lots of rock, although surprisingly there were many options to run on trails. The women's course was 5.8 km and perhaps a little more technically demanding than the men's.
Unfortunately none of the Canadian team made the cut-off for the finals. Sandy and Cherie were 35th and 40th respectively in the first qualification race, while Pam and Lumi were 48th and 50th in the second race. Sandy was less than four minutes from the 30th spot. In the men's races Mike Smith was 43rd and I was 48th in one of the qualifiers. Nick was 53rd while Wil was 57th in the other qualifier. Mike was seven minutes out of 30th spot. None of the Canadian athletes felt that they had run clean races. Despite this their times over the courses would have been considered respectable by North American standards.
The next day, Tuesday, we had the opportunity to watch the classic finals. Despite the competitors being hidden in the forest for most of the race, and each of the competitions taking about three and a half hours to complete, the finals were very exciting to watch. Live broadcasts from the forest broadcast on that big screen TV, along with up to the second commentary by the announcer kept things suspenseful. In both the men's and the women's races the final outcome wasn't decided until the last few runners had finished. In the case of the women's race Simone Luder of Switzerland nipped Marika Mikkola from Finland by three seconds after an hour and fifteen minutes of racing. This included Simone making up five seconds on Marika between the last control and the finish. The crowd was going nuts! On the men's side Jorgen Rostrup, from Norway, was leading with only a few runners to finish - including Jani Lakenen from Finland. Everyone was on pins and needles as Jani progressed through the last few controls. But by the last control the race for first was over as Jani was about 30 seconds behind Jorgen at that point. Still it was very exciting.
I don't know what happened on the live TV broadcast but the much ballyhooed GPS tracking was never shown at the event site. We were not able to track the competitors in real time.
Wednesday was a rest day. So we rested... What else were you expecting?
Thursday was relay day at the world championships. This was a four-person relay, with the women's race taking place first and the men's race second. Most of the Canadian athletes had good races. The women's team placed 17th about 17 minutes ahead of the American team. Pam was able to escape into the forest before the mass start for the remaining fourth leg runners - by this point the top teams had finished the race. Unfortunately for the men's team I made a large ten minute error near the end of the fourth leg. And, horror of horrors, the American team ended up beating us by about 45 seconds (I will never live it down). The men's team placed 26th overall.
The race for the front runners was quite exciting in both the men and women's races. In the women's race the lead was traded back and forth in the first half of the relay, finally it seemed as though the Swedish team was pulling away. But the Norwegian fourth leg runner slowly reeled in the Swedish runner until they emerged from the forest only a few seconds apart at the last control. And it was a race to the finish - but the Swedish runner held of the Norwegian by a few inches using a classic cross-country elbow in the face move. The men's race wasn't so exciting; the Finns wrapped it up during the third leg and won by several minutes, although for the first two legs they were battling it out with Australia for the lead!
On Friday we had the short distance qualifiers. There were four races each for the men and the women. The top fifteen from each race went on to the final. The map for the qualifier was adjacent to the relay map so we had all had a look at the terrain the day before. It was thick but not as hilly as the classic terrain. Again we had disappointing results in the qualifiers. Nick was 21st, Mike Smith was 25th, I was 27th and Wil was 30th. In the women's races Pam was 18th, Sandy was 18th, Cherie was 21st and Lumi was 25th. Again no one was celebrating a clean run or even anything approaching that.
The following day was the last day of the competition. The short distance final was held in between the relay map and the short distance qualifier map. This was the last piece of unused terrain that bordered the start finish area. While the races progressed a looming storm slowly moved in, with the last half of the men's race being run in the rain. Still it didn't seem to have much of an effect on the results. Hanne Staff from Norway won the women's race, arriving near the end to win by about 10 seconds. On the men's side Pasi Ikonen charged through the course arriving at the end of the competition to win by about 20 seconds. What is interesting about Pasi is that he doesn't use a compass in his races. So throw away your compass and see what happens...
Saturday night was the banquet. Highlights include the Finnish men's team with their attempt to outdo the Tampere Cheerleaders - not surprisingly they failed, and Grant Bluett from Australia playing cricket with other Australian team members - the bat was a cucumber and the ball was a dinner roll.
"Well Rob, that's it", I said. "After the banquet we all made our way home one way or another. There is nothing more I can tell you."
"I guess I was wrong about you, Fellows", Rob replied, "You were able to come up with an article. But unfortunately for you, since you've owed me an article for a year, and with an interest rate of 55% a month - let's see, it looks like you'll be writing articles for the next couple of years. You should be done shortly after the next world championships - 2003 in Switzerland."
"But Rob, I'm getting a little old for this kind of thing", I pleaded. "Can't you cut me a deal?"
"Oh don't worry, you'll do just fine next time around", he replied.
And with that he strolled out the door.
"Rob! - cut the flagging tape off so I can get out of this chair!", I shouted. "Rob!... Rob!!"
What do you do after you have held the most successful navigational exercise and race in Nova Scotia? You immediately start planning to make it even better!
In 2001, more than 120 participants challenged their physical and skill limits in the Halifax Search and Rescue's SAR Challenge. Competitors came from as far away as Montreal to spend up to 24-hours racing through the forests near Tantallon, Halifax County.
Everyone had fun; everyone demanded more! So, on April 27/28, 2002, the Eco-Endurance Challenge - E2C, Maritime Canada's premier wilderness navigational challenge, will be held. The Eco-Endurance Challenge will be a physically and mentally demanding eco-adventure with an event area covering more than 150-km2 of thick forests, extremely wet bogs, fast flowing streams and miles of backwoods trails and cart tracks.
Good physical conditioning is necessary to push one though the tough terrain, but accurate navigation skills are key to finding the controls and minimizing the distance traveled.
The challenge is mentally exhausting as team members must always be aware of their surroundings and their place on the map. The course map will not be adjusted for manmade features such as roads or buildings, so land features will be the only accurate means of determining where you are.
Participants will represent a wide variety of backgrounds and interests: Search and Rescue Emergency Responders, adventure racers, orienteering enthusiasts, scouts, cadets, and ordinary outdoor enthusiasts. Based on 2001's participation, more than half may be female. The Eco-Endurance Challenge will be the most broadly based navigation exercise held in Atlantic Canada. Organizers expect over 350 participants to challenge themselves in 2002.
The Eco-Endurance Challenge has emerged from the highly successful Maxi-Moose competitions held in the Cobequid Mountains in 1997 and 1999 by the Orienteering Association of Nova Scotia, and Halifax Regional Search and Rescue's Search and Rescue Challenges held outside Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2000 and 2001.
Visit http://www.hrsar.ca for details of Eco-Endurance Challenge 2002.
Kelvin King and Michael Haynes
Directors, Eco-Endurance Challenge 2002
The 2002 Eco-Endurance Challenge offers four challenges for the adventurous:
| Challenge | Description | Team Size | Options |
|---|---|---|---|
| Challenge I | Search & Rescue Challenge | 2 person | 8 or 24 hour |
| Challenge II | Public Competitive | 2 person | 8 or 24 hour |
| Challenge III | Recreational | 2 to 5 person | 8 or 24 hour |
| Challenge IV | Mountain Bike | 2 person | 6 hour |
It's always annoying not to finish a course...and then there is that added barb jabbed into you later on, when you forlornly review the string of control cards, or read the official results: "DSQ!!!". It even get used as a verb. To DSQ may be human, but it isn't very encouraging. In some areas they used DHB instead.....for "Did His /Her Best".
What do you think of this??? Write in to ONB Notes with your view point.
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